


Mud and Sand

by lateralus112358



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-25 23:05:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12046176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lateralus112358/pseuds/lateralus112358
Summary: Across years and continents and amidst armies and wars, Root and Shaw build something.





	Mud and Sand

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so the final story in my Dr. Shaw/Agent Root series is not yet finished. Unfortunately some real life things have demanded my attention and my already pitiful writing pace took another hit. Excuses excuses blah blah blah.
> 
> In the meantime, though, I finally finished this story, which I'm pretty excited about. It takes place in the universe of the Malazan series, but no knowledge of the books is required.

Seven Cities

The wind blows across the cracked pan of the desert, stirring up clouds of blistering sand. The sun glares down, bright and unforgiving. The horizon is nearly flat in all directions, save for the illusory shimmer at the edges, and an occasional, vague impression of a hill somewhere in the distance. Captain Shaw, captain no longer, captain of a company of corpses, captain in an army she’ll never catch up to, pulls her scarf higher against her face, and her hood lower, until just the barest slit remains for her eyes to peer through, and to blink in pain when grains of sand still push past.

Stopping her seemingly progressionless march, she raises a hand to block the glare of the sun and looks out across the horizon, seeing nothing but sand and sky. She pulls out her waterskin, now half empty. She’s got two more, but at the rate she’s going they’ll be gone soon. The dry desert air seems to suck all the moisture out of her. She takes a quick sip and then puts it away. 

She walks on.

“You’re being silly, Sameen.”

Shaw turns, too exhausted to even be surprised, and sees Root walking beside her. The desert woman has her hair loose, no covering on her face, yet somehow seems unaffected by the occasional swirls of sand. Shaw takes a moment to wonder how a woman as pale as Root can even survive in the desert without becoming one tall, obnoxious sunburn, then says shortly, “Piss off.”

“You’ll die of thirst out here on your own.” Root walks with an easy, unhurried gait, swinging her arms and kicking lightly at piles of sand.

“Right now that’s sounding better than the alternative.” Shaw increases her pace, but Root’s longer legs match her without much effort.

“You need me.” Root says. “And I need you. Besides,” she adds, “We’re so good together.” She deftly steps around and then in front of Shaw, forcing her to stop. “Help me. And let me help you.” Root lays a hand lightly on Shaw’s shoulder. “And after we have our fun, we can go our separate ways.” She starts walking back the way they came, and calls over her shoulder, “Unless you get too attached to me.”

Shaw heaves a sigh, and follows in her wake.

Genabackis

Clouds paint the sky a mottled grey-black. Rain beats down like it’s holding a grudge. The air is cold, and the ground, already near saturation point, refuses entry to the torrent of water beating down. The surrounding landscape, covered only sparsely in grass, becomes a river of cold mud. A bedraggled squad, a detachment from the main body of the Malazan army on this continent, sloshes through water and dirt, their clothes soaked entirely through, feet and ankles almost constantly submerged. Swords and crossbows clank dully against backs and thighs as the stumbling, wet march continues. Heads are ducked into cowls and hoods against the ceaseless drum of water poured down from above. The constant press forward is sustained only by the knowledge that stopping would bring no relief. The squad’s sergeant, a short, lithe figure at the front of the group, presses on, the others following in her wake.

A copse of trees stands ahead, like a lone outpost in this ocean of mud, and the group, redoubling their efforts to push wet, frigid limbs on, make for this sanctuary.

The steady downpour is not stopped by the trees above, but it is abated somewhat, and for the weary soldiers resting beneath, it is enough. Packs are discarded and stuffed under beds of roots. Weapons removed, spots where rainfall is most sparse are sought out, and the wet, cold figures begin to settle in, until the storm passes. Sergeant Shaw closes her eyes, thinking of the relentless, scorching sun of the desert, air so dry that sweat evaporated almost instantly, and wishes she was there. Such is the lot of a soldier, to exist in perpetual misery, the golden days always immediately behind them.

“You know,” comes a voice from close by, still somewhat raised against the thundering rainfall. “If you come over here, I can warm you up.”

Shaw looks over to see the sparkling, eternally-scheming eyes of Corporal Root. “You have magic that can do that?” She asks the mage.

“Magic?” Root raises one hand and wiggles the fingers. “I guess you could call it that.”

Shaw rolls her eyes. If anyone ever had cause to doubt her masochistic tendencies, they need look no further than her choice to have the mage as her corporal. Though she never really rationalized it as a choice. Where she goes, Root goes. An immutable law of reality that others would do well not to question.

“Fine,” Shaw relents, moving closer to Root, and they huddle together beneath the trees. One of Root’s hands snakes around Shaw’s shoulders, the other disappears somewhere between her legs. 

The rest of the squad, presumably valuing their lives, turn away and say nothing.

***

Scorched black, the one remaining wall of the cottage sways and creaks as Sergeant Shaw pushes on it, but does not fall over. The deluge from the day before had smothered any tenacious fires, and now the desiccated village lies coated in black ash. Soaked corpses are strewn throughout; the level of degradation suggesting that whatever slaughter took place is only a few days past.

Corporal Root steps carefully through the wreckage, nimbly skirting the bodies covering the ground, her arms held out to both sides as if feeling the air. “Not sorcery,” she says, eyes half-closed. “Whoever did this, they weren’t mages.”

The rain had tapered to a drizzle by morning, and the squad had set out again, watching as flat, bare plains slowly changed to gently sloping, grassy hills and fields of crops. Spirits were lifted, at least marginally, by the sun imparting some measure of warmth back to their limbs, only to be dashed into anger as they had reached the site of the slaughter. Anger is better than despondency, though. Anger motivates. Not that this present injustice has anything to do with Shaw’s squad, but directionless fury can be given any particular direction one desires; in this case, picking up the pace as they continue on to rejoin the rest of the train. 

“Shaw!” Root’s voice calls out sharply. Sergeant Shaw doesn’t even acknowledge the omission of her title; casual insubordination is one of Corporal Root’s defining traits. It’s to be expected, really, she’s not even proper military. And besides, compared to constantly trying to have sex with Shaw, omitting her rank seems like a minor offense. Shaw steps around bodies and over charred, crumbling remnants of buildings over to where Root is crouched, at the edge of one of the ruined tenements. This one seems to have evaded the brunt of the fire; the two walls nearest Root are still mostly intact, though the others seem to have been crushed in, bringing the roof down with them, and it is on top of this that Root now crouches.

Shaw gingerly walks over to join her, the toppled roof groaning beneath her but not giving way. “What is it, Root?”

“This one had a cellar. There’s someone alive down there.”

Shaw nods, and calls over a few of the other squad members to start moving the wreckage away. Root’s preternatural senses are almost completely infallible, and, as incredibly obnoxious as that tends to be, it’s also rather helpful at times.

The form pulled from the cellar is small, female, barely more than a decade old, and apparently unconscious. Sergeant Shaw checks her body for wounds, while Corporal Root stands over her shoulder. “Is she going to live?”

“Maybe.” Shaw says shortly. 

“You don’t have to pretend not to be concerned in front of me, Sameen. I know you care.”

“Concern’s not going to save her.” Shaw says tersely. “Leave me alone.”

Corporal Root’s right ear had been mangled once, years ago when she and Shaw had trudged the scalding sands of Seven Cities together. Shaw had sewn the ear back up as much as possible, although a painful looking scar had remained, running across the ear and up towards her scalp. Whenever Root has her hair down, she favors it towards that side. The ear itself, the inner mechanisms, Shaw had been unable to repair, and the corporal is almost completely deaf on that side. It is this, Shaw imagines, that causes Root to apparently ignore a direct command from her sergeant and continue talking.

“I know you care about me, too.”

“I keep you around because you’re useful. You want sappy stuff you need to look somewhere else.” Shaw stands abruptly. “She’ll live. Reese!” The tall, quiet soldier looks up at her call. “We’re taking her with us. You carry her for now. We can trade off later if we need to.” The sergeant walks away, heading for the edge of the scorched village, and out onto the plains stretched ahead. She doesn’t stop or turn around.

From behind her she hears Root call out to the rest of the squad, “Come on, slowpokes! The train isn’t going to wait up for us!” Shaw detests being an officer and generally leaves most of the actual delegating of duties and orders to her corporal, who takes a great deal of pleasure it in. Root quickly returns to Shaw’s side, though this time she holds her tongue.

Seven Cities

The enemy are not disciplined. Their tactics speak of skirmishes fought with neighboring tribes; man against man, woman against woman, no sense of cohesion among the army as a whole. Their armor is inferior; some having only light leather pads; some without shields; legacies of a primitive, territorial sort of warfare. Captain Shaw and the Malazan soldiers arrayed in tight formation with her are in every way superior to these tribal, Seven Cities warriors. Her company will hold long enough for the rest of the army to make good their escape.

But they cannot win.

Her body moves in an exquisite dance of slaughter. Her sword flashes out, her shield comes up, slashing and blocking and carving a wall of gore around her. 

But there are always more of them. And one by one, her disciplined, well-armored, well-equipped soldiers fall to the sheer overwhelming numbers of the enemy. The most painful truth of war, then, is this: skill does not matter. No matter how hard she fights, no matter her virtually unmatched ferocity, she will fall eventually, to someone without even an iota of the resolve, or the skill, or the discipline that she’s cultivated her entire life. The last one of her own soldiers falls, and she is on her own. She fights on.

First she takes a spear thrust to her thigh, the point piercing between plates of armor. She slashes through the haft of the spear, then in the same motion takes the head of the one holding it. A sudden blossoming of pain in her side as a sword slides past armor, and a sharp clank as the blade exits the other side, hitting the armor against her back. The woman holding the sword tries to give it a savage twist, but Captain Shaw drops her own sword, and seizes the one emerging from her body and holds it still, blood running down her hand and dripping off her fingers as her palm is sliced open. Hand remaining on the blade, she advances one step, and slams her head forward, her helm connecting with the soldier’s unprotected head. The woman collapses. Almost beyond the capacity to register pain, dimly aware that she is already dying, Shaw pulls the sword from her body and wields it against the still-advancing enemy. 

A savage blow that she never feels takes her in the back of the head and she falls, unconscious, onto the heaped bodies of the killing field.

***

“I don’t know that she’s going to make it. I _tried_. I don’t know how! Well, what if I can’t? Of course I trust you. But what if I can’t do it?”

Slowly becoming aware of inhabiting a body wracked with pain that feels half crusted-over with scabs, Shaw listens in a bemused, detached way to the odd, echoing one-sided conversation. She’s laying on her back. Her surroundings are dimly lit, but there’s enough light for her to make out the rock face above her. Some sort of cave, she thinks. The light seems natural, from the sun rather than a fire, so they must not be too far from the entrance. She tries to turn her head and a flash of pain and an involuntary spasm shove her unceremoniously into unconsciousness again.

When she regains awareness, there’s a face hovering over her. Pale-skinned and dark-haired, the woman looks strangely delicate. “Hey, beautiful,” she says. “You shouldn’t try to move. You need your rest.”

“I’m bleeding.” Shaw says, noticing for the first time that her lips are cracked and coated in dried blood.

“Not anymore,” the woman shakes her head. “I patched you up.”

“Internal.” Shaw groans, as she moves one of her hands to feel her torso. “I’m still bleeding inside.”

“Oh.” The woman looks somewhat downcast. “How do I fix it?”

Shaw snorts derisively, and then grimaces at the pain the motion brings in its wake. “What, you’re going to give me surgery?” 

“If that’s what you need.” Shaw watches in surprise as the woman moves out of her range of vision, then returns with a knife, the blade faintly steaming, a needle and some sort of thread. “Tell me what to do.”

“Are you serious?” Shaw asks incredulously.

“Yes.”

To Shaw’s near-disbelief, the woman, hands steady the entire time, follows Shaw’s instructions deftly and precisely, removing the stitches, locating the laceration inside and carefully sewing it up, then restitching the wound in Shaw’s side. 

Once this is done, Shaw loses consciousness again.

***

The woman, who identifies herself to Captain Shaw as ‘Root,’ brings over a foul-smelling mixture of herbs and ‘things’ that is supposed to help prevent infection. Root lifts the blanket covering Shaw’s body and begins applying the poultice to the wound on her side. This is also the first time since Shaw’s awakening in Root’s cave that she’s had the clearness of mind to note that this sheet of cloth is the only thing between her bare skin and the open air. Turning her head, a motion that still induces pain, she sees her clothes and armor stashed against the cave wall opposite where she’s laying. Seeing the cast of Shaw’s gaze, Root says, “I had to take them off to treat your wounds. Don’t worry,” she rolls her eyes. “I didn’t touch you. Although, once you get better…” she continues dabbing the foul concoction onto Shaw’s wounds. “You know. If you want.”

“No thanks.” Shaw croaks, mouth dry. Root quickly darts over to another corner of the cave and brings back a glass of clear water. She tries to tip it into Shaw’s mouth, but the captain pushes her away, and, with a groan as pain flares all across her body, pulls herself into a sitting position and takes the glass from Root. She takes a long drink, then glares at Root, whose eyes are fixed on Shaw’s chest where the blanket has fallen away. “Get me some clothes.”

Once dressed (presumably Root’s spare clothing, though the fit of the underclothes is suspiciously accurate) and wrapped in several makeshift bandages, Shaw sits herself against the back wall of the cave and takes a moment to observe her surroundings. The space is near a hundred paces wide at the back, and tapers down to about twenty paces at the entrance, itself about a hundred paces from the back wall. The cave apparently constitutes Root’s living space, as evidenced by the permanent stone circle for a cookfire, with a pot suspended above it, a bedroll with clothes piled next to it, and various dishes, books, weapons, and tools that lay scattered about. Shaw hasn’t gone outside yet, not entirely trusting her body to carry her that far, but she can see from the cave entrance the yellow ochre glare of sand, and the distant shimmer from a merciless sun beating down. The desert. 

Root’s source of water is a spring somewhere back inside the rock, that trickles through cracks and crevices until it emerges from the back of the cave into a depression from which Root gathers water for drinking and cooking. The overflow runs down through a constructed channel along the cave wall, until it reaches another, larger depression about midway to the cave entrance, this one used for bathing. A number of lanterns are suspended from the ceiling, ostensibly to be lit at night when the sun’s light departs. It all has the flavor of a fairly long-term residence.

Root sits on her bedroll, occasionally looking up and staring at Shaw for long moments. She hasn’t repeated her self-dialogue from earlier, and now that Shaw’s mind is more able to trace familiar tracks, this is the subject that occupies most of her attention. Exactly what kind of person has she fallen in with? A priestess of some sort, sworn to some god or another? Or possibly just a lunatic. And why did this woman rescue Shaw, drag her who knows how far to this cave in the desert, and then try to heal her? Upon reflection, Shaw thinks she’s mostly indifferent to the answer. As soon as she can walk, she’s gone. Root is thin and doesn’t look like much of a fighter anyway.

Then again, Shaw doubts she keeps the weapons strewn about just for show.

“We’re going to have so much fun together.” Root says from across the cave, prompted by nothing that Shaw can detect.

Yes, she’s definitely leaving as soon as she can. She needs to catch up to the army, still marching across Seven Cities, marching away from her.

Genabackis

“Isn’t it strange for her to sleep this long?”

The small girl they had recovered from the ruined village lies unmoving a few paces away from the small fire, beneath a blanket Corporal Root had laid on top of her. Night had fallen as they marched, and brought a chill with it. Stars flicker overhead. Wolves or some similar creatures howl in the distance. Some of the squad have already drawn out their bedrolls, and bundled up for the night. Others are meandering about, doing things Shaw doesn’t care to investigate. She sits by the fire they had made, eating strips of one of the animals they’d caught and cooked. Root planted herself right alongside, close enough that their legs touch. Out of lethargy Shaw neglects to move away. “She’s not asleep,” Shaw says between bites. “She’s just listening to us. Trying to decide whether or not to run away.”

At this, the girl sits upright, and looks around, curly hair bouncing. “I’m hungry.”

Shaw tosses her the remaining strips of meat. She picks them up and devours them voraciously. “So you’re not going to kill me?” She asks.

“Why would we kill you?” Root asks, just as Shaw says, “No.”

The girl picks up her blanket and sits down on Shaw’s other side. “I just thought you were… them. The people who killed everyone.”

“We’re the good guys.” Root tells her.

“Heard that before.” Shaw mutters.

“Where are you going?” The girl asks.

“War.” Shaw replies. Not technically a lie; the army is in fact aiming for a confrontation, though Root and Shaw are only along for the ride so far as Root’s god deems it to be collinear with their overarching mission. Whatever it actually is. Hardly matters at this point, Shaw thinks. They’ll probably die in combat before then anyway. 

“Who are you fighting?”

“Didn’t ask.”

“Why wouldn’t you ask?”

Shaw sighs and stands up. “Talk to Root. I’m going to sleep.” She moves off to find her bedroll.

“Save some space for me, Sameen!” Root calls after her.

***

Like some great beast, enormous and ponderous, the train of the army moves across the plain, stirring up dust in its wake. Ranks upon ranks of soldiers, trailed by caravans containing food, weapons, and the random hangers-on an army tends to accumulate, the mass cuts a stark line across the plain. Sergeant Shaw’s squad, slightly behind and to the west, moves at a pace that should have them rendezvous before nightfall.

Genrika, the girl they had rescued from the ruined village, walks alongside Shaw, a long knife, nearly a sword for her, strapped to her side. Not that Shaw will let her anywhere near combat, but the girl had insisted. And it’s good practice anyway. “Why weren’t you with the rest of the army?” Genrika inquires as they walk.

“Some mission of Root’s. Someone she’s looking for. I don’t really ask questions anymore.” The sergeant has learned over the years she’s spent with Root that while the mage acts as if every detail is already known to her, often she’s just as in the dark as anyone else.

Well, maybe slightly less in the dark. But not by much.

“So they just let you wander off whenever you want?” Genrika asks.

“Root can be convincing when she wants to be.”

“Is that why you two are together?”

An astute observation, Shaw thinks. How much does she actually believe in the mission they’re on? Enough, apparently, to leave the Malazan army and trek across oceans and deserts with Root, at the behest of her supposedly benign god. And now Shaw’s in the army again, marching against an enemy she knows nothing about. Maybe the strange bond she has with Root had compelled her. Maybe the truth is that she’s just a soldier, and she doesn’t know how to do anything else. The mission is all she has, whether she believes in it or not. “We’re together because we need to be.” She responds.

“Root said it’s because you’re in love with her.” Genrika informs her.

Shaw turns around and to see Root, about ten paces behind them, and glares at her. She waves back cheerfully. “I don’t love anyone.”

Genrika mulls this over for a few moments, then changes topics. “So why did you rescue me? Is it part of your secret plan?”

Shaw frowns. “What ‘secret plan’?”

Genrika rolls her eyes. “I’m not stupid. I’ve heard you two talking.”

“Yeah?” Shaw says. “What did you hear?”

“Well, nothing that I really understood. But I know you guys are up to something.” Genrika grimaces. “Sorry. My parents always said I was too curious for my own good.”

“Were they in the village?”

“No, they died years ago.” Genrika says in a matter-of-fact voice.

“My father died.” Shaw says, after a moment. Not an act of sympathy or an attempt at commiseration, just a fact thrown out into the air, for anyone who might find it to do with as they will.

“Is it weird that I don’t feel sad?” Genrika says. “About the people in the village. I mean I guess I’m sad, but not like, really sad, you know?”

“It’s Root.” Shaw answers. “She’s a mage. She can mess with people’s emotions.”

“Oh.” The girl looks thoughtful for a few moments. “Is that why you’re not scared of anything?”

“No. She can’t mess with me.” Shaw snorts. “I don’t have emotions.”

“Don’t listen to Sameen,” the sound of Root’s voice reaches Shaw as the mage joins them, walking on Shaw’s other side. “She just doesn’t like people knowing how much she cares about me.”

Shaw scowls and speeds up her pace.

Seven Cities

“So are we just going to play house here forever, or what?” Shaw asks, pulling the catch that releases the bathing water to flow into another channel running along the side of the wall, that ends outside of the cave. Once the water is drained, she’ll replace the catch and the overflow from the drinking portion will flow down, and in about six to eight hours the water in the bathing pool will be at a sufficient height to be used once again. Shaw tugs on her clothes, and glances at Root, who sits about ten paces away, back turned. She always studiously maintains this position while Shaw is bathing, as if to demonstrate her honorability. This is a courtesy that Shaw does not repay when their positions are reversed, since Root seems to enjoy the theater of the thing. Shaw grudgingly admits to a similar measure of enjoyment.

“We’ll go when She tells us to go, Sameen.” Root responds.

“I don’t like being directed by the whims of gods.” The water fully drained, Shaw replaces the catch, a simple plate of some smooth metal set into a track at the start of the drainage channel. “You can turn around now. I’m dressed.”

“Shame,” Root sighs, turning herself around and blinking up at Shaw fondly. “And if it makes you uncomfortable, don’t think about it being for Her. Think about doing it for me.”

“You think that’ll be more appealing to me?” Shaw snorts.

“You did come back with me.”

Shaw lays down on her bedroll, which is right next to Root’s. Originally she had placed it as far from the other woman as possible, but grew tired of having to relocate it every time Root moved hers closer. “I came back because you were right.” Shaw says. “I need you to get me out of this damn desert.”

Root smiles. “You could have just stopped at ‘I need you.’”

“So you have no idea when we’re going to get out of here?”

Root smiles wider. “I didn’t say that.”

“So you’re just trying to infuriate me?”

Root walks over to her bedroll and lays down on her side, facing Shaw, who determinedly keeps her gaze focused on the cave ceiling. “Is my company really that awful?” 

“Mostly, yeah.”

“So you can’t think of even… one redeeming quality?”

Shaw turns her head, planning on delivering some scathing comment, but decides against it. She licks her lips. “All right, fine,” she says. “Take off your clothes.”

Root promptly complies.

***

The desert at night is alive with sound. All manner of creatures emerge once the oppressive heat of the day is past, and Root and Shaw take to doing the same. Root finds hidden springs of water where they refill their skins, and caves or outcroppings of rock where they sleep during the day. Weapons are strapped to their backs and sides, and Root brought a satchel full of essentials; the needle and thread, some medicinal herbs, a few books, but most everything else she’d simply left behind. Shaw had, with regret, done the same for her armor. Lugging it across the entire desert just seemed unfeasible, as hard as this truth was to face. They’d brought only one bedroll, which precipitated an amount of heat and sweat that couldn’t be solely attributed to the sun’s glare. Root, excepting the occasional comment, doesn’t seem inclined to push it to anything beyond sex, and the arrangement works nicely.

Now, they walk side by side in silence. While not yet approaching any real camaraderie, or even trust, they’ve arrived at some sort of understanding of mutual necessity. Root will bring Shaw out of the desert, and Shaw, in turn, will deliver Root to a ship that will take her away from Seven Cities, to the continent of Genabackis. And then, Shaw hopes, they’ll be quit of each other. 

Root suddenly freezes in place. Shaw stops too, drawing her sword, glancing around, looking for motion. Impossibly, a figure appears twenty paces in front of them. Shaw should have heard them coming.

In the light of moon, Shaw sees that the figure moving towards them is a woman, her hair blonde and close-cropped, no obvious weapons on her person.

“I don’t know who you are,” she calls to Shaw. “But I don’t have any business with you. Stand aside and I won’t hurt you.” Shaw doesn’t respond, but the look on her face clearly speaks for her. The woman smiles. “Have it your way.”

A sudden, pungent scent accompanies an indistinct shimmer about the woman body; her form grows blurry and seems to almost melt, as she veers into five distinct forms. Shaped somewhat like large dogs, though longer about the torso, each one is covered in deep red scales from head to toe. The feet have long claws that look almost like talons, and the mouths bear two long, serpentine fangs each, amidst a horde of other smaller, razorlike teeth.

Root draws two long knives from the sheaths at her hips. 

In a rush, the beasts attack. Two charge Shaw. Muscles taut, legs set, she braces herself. One of them leaps at her, jaws opening, and her blade slices through, detaching the lower jaw, cutting down to the beast’s stomach. The other makes it past her guard, claws slashing at her legs. Bleeding from a half dozen deep cuts, she stays upright, jumping back to avoid the creature’s fangs, slashing forward as she does so, catching the beasts snout, but it’s no more than a glancing blow. A split second look across from her, and she sees Root closing with two of the beasts, long knives darting as she dances around claws and fangs. Shaw returns her attention to the creature in front of her, now stalking around her, circling her like a wolf. Waiting for an opening. So Shaw does the unexpected, and rushes the beast, sword flashing up to deflect claws, and then back down to sever feet from legs. A final blow to the creature’s head, and it goes still.

Shaw looks over to Root. One of her aggressors appears dead, but the other is still fighting, and Root has taken a few blows, blood dripping off her in several places. Shaw moves towards her, then stops.

Where’s the fifth one?

Claws scrape her shoulders and lower back as the beast leaps onto her, its momentum knocking her facefirst onto the ground. Pinned down, she tries to get her sword arm free to swing around at the jaws she’s sure are moments from severing her spine, but the claws sunk deep into the muscle of her arm prevent movement.

A tearing pain, and suddenly the weight is gone. Shaw rolls over and leaps to her feet, and sees the creature scrabbling on the ground, stirring up dust, with Root latched onto its back, having apparently jumped the creature while it was on top of Shaw. Both knives sunk deep into flesh, she hangs on as claws reach back, laying open flesh, blood streaming down her body. A particularly vicious strike takes her across the side of her head, and she loses her grip, rolling onto the ground. The beast rights itself, hackles raised, poised to pounce, when Shaw’s hurled sword takes it in its chest. Howling, three blades emerging from its body, the creature limps away. 

Shaw, now weaponless, looks around warily. Three of the beasts are dead, two by her hand and one by Root’s. The one making its escape, and one other she can’t locate. Fled as well, perhaps; it had borne several wounds from Root’s knives when Shaw last saw it.

Still glancing around, Shaw darts over to where Root is laying, and begins assessing the damage. She has a pulse, and she’s still breathing. Good signs. Numerous small lacerations on her upper legs and torso. The entire right side of her head is coated in blood, emerging from a long slash nearly from neck to scalp, that had torn through her ear along the way. Shaw stands again, locates Root’s satchel several paces away on the ground, and retrieves it. She tears several strips of fabric from the bedroll, uses them to staunch the minor wounds, then sets to work on the long cut on her head.

About halfway through, needle and thread working to close the gash, Root’s eyes flicker open. “Hey, sweetie,” she murmurs, slurring slightly.

Shaw almost smiles. “Really? You want to do this now?”

“No time like the present.” Root smacks her lips, and her eyes rove vaguely. “Sameen….”

When she doesn’t continue, Shaw, not taking her eyes off her hands and their careful work, says, “Yeah?”

“If I die, I just wanted to let you know…” Root trails off for a second, then regroups. “I really like having sex with you.”

Shaw actually snorts in laughter. “You’re not bad, either. You’re not gonna die, though,” she adds. “I still need you to get me out of this desert, remember?”

“We’re close now,” Root says, her eyes closing. In a barely audible mumble, she says, “You can make it on your own from here.”

“Yeah, well.” Shaw keeps working. “We made a deal. I keep my word.”

Genabackis

“You should just kiss her.”

Sergeant Shaw, sitting cross-legged on the ground, sharpening her sword, looks over at Genrika, seated beside her, and then swings her gaze back to Root, who’s about twenty paces away, sitting by herself, looking at the ground. She gets like this sometimes; oddly despondent, keeping to herself. Maybe she’s fighting with the god that occasionally shows up in her head. Shaw has no idea. It’s been happening more lately, though. She doesn’t respond to Genrika.

“Everyone knows you like her. It’s not like it’s a secret.”

“Is that what you did with that boy who’s always following you around?” Shaw asks. Upon joining the army’s main body, the girl had very quickly sought out other children around her age, forming some sort of strange cabal of which she was head. It was a common thing to see her in the company of one or two other children, or even a group of a dozen or so. Not all of the attention she garnered, however, was appreciated.

“No,” she replies, wrinkling her nose. “He’s gross and smells like dirt.” After a moment of silence, she apparently decides Shaw isn’t going to respond, and continues. “You seem happier when she’s around.”

“I told you,” Shaw says, looking down at her sword. “I don’t really do ‘happy.’”

“OK,” Genrika responds with the tone of a parent humoring a purposely obtuse child. “Then you seem less mad when she’s around. Plus it would make her happy, and then maybe she’d stop bothering me all the time.”

“Thought you liked her.” Shaw says. When not slinking about with her group of peers, or aiming a constant stream of questions at Shaw, the girl can usually be found in Root’s wake, talking and laughing. 

“I do,” Genrika says. “But sometimes she gets in the way of my enterprise.”

Shaw snorts. “Enterprise? What enterprise?”

Genrika glances to both sides, then turns around, making sure no one’s in earshot. In a low voice, she says, “Espionage.”

Shaw looks over at her, curiosity piqued. “What, so you’re a spy?” 

“Yes. Nobody pays attention to us kids. We can hear everything.”

A network of child spies, moving throughout the army, all meeting and relaying their information to the central hub, Genrika herself. Shaw admits to a certain amount of admiration. “I did some spying,” she says. “A while back.” 

“Before Seven Cities?”

Shaw narrows her eyes. “What do you know about that?”

Genrika shrugs. “I listened to your squad talk. They said you were on the Chain of Dogs.”

Shaw casts a glare over at the squad members nearest her; none of them meet her eye. “They talk too much.” When she and Root had reached Genabackis and been informed (Shaw by Root, Root by her god) that they needed to join the army, she had been accepted and given an officer’s position almost immediately. Root they were somewhat more skeptical about, but Shaw’s reputation apparently sufficed as a recommendation. Kind of stupid, she thinks. Being left for dead near the beginning of Coltaine’s legendary march hardly qualified her for her own legend, but no one else seemed to see it that way.

“So what happened?” Genrika presses.

“Everyone died. I didn’t. The end.”

Neither of them speak for a few moments. The noise of life in the camp goes on around them, sounds of laugher, or shouts of angers, the sounds of weapons being sharpened, the crackling of fires to cook the night’s meals. “Take me with you.” Genrika says suddenly. At Shaw’s querying look, she says, “I’m a spy, remember? I hear what you and Root talk about.”

“What did you hear?”

“A lot of stuff. Most of it was pretty gross actually.” She wrinkles her nose again. “But I know you’re planning on leaving the army. I want you to take me with you.”

Shaw gives her a level look. “I can’t be your mother.”

“I know,” Genrika says. “But I like you. And you like me and Root even though you think you don’t.”

“Fine,” Shaw sighs. “If we don’t die, I’ll take you with me.”

***

Corporal Root sits a ways away from the army, which is beginning to rouse itself into motion. She stares into the distance, where the sun is beginning its slow march over the horizon. Sergeant Shaw walks over, and stands beside her. “So we’re attacking a city,” she says, after a few moments of silence. “Some mage has taken the place over, apparently. Convinced the local garrison to be her personal army.”

Root nods without speaking. Continuing her sullen streak. Shaw abruptly sits down next her.

“Most likely,” Shaw says, looking to the side, out at the army arrayed before them. “This damn mission of yours is going to get us killed.”

Root nods again, still not saying anything.

“But if we survive,” Shaw continues, “And we leave the army, we should stay together.”

“What do you need me for?” Root asks, looking at the ground.

“I don’t need you.” Shaw grabs Root’s chin and pulls her head up so their eyes meet. “I want you.”

The corporal, now fighting a smile, eyes sparkling, asks, “So what? You want to settle down? Get a house, maybe grow a little garden?”

Shaw snorts, stands, and starts walking into the army’s wake, Root tagging along beside her. “No thanks. Maybe we’ll be bodyguards or something. Knock some heads together.” 

“We _could_ get a house,” Root says. “For when we’re not working. And a nice big bed.”

“We’ll talk about it.” Shaw hesitates, then grabs the front of Root’s shirt, pulls her down and kisses her.

As they walk, Root remarks, “So I see you’re getting along with Gen.”

“She’s all right as far as kids go,” Shaw says. “What’s your point?”

“Nothing,” Root says lightly. “Just glad to see you making friends.”

Seven Cities

Wind gusts outside, and the single, shuttered window rattles and creaks. The room takes austerity to an extreme; the sole piece of furniture is a rickety, time-worn bed. Then again, the size of the room hardly allows for anything more. Under normal circumstances Shaw might bemoan the substandard accommodations, but at the moment she’s too occupied marveling over the fact that she’s actually laying on a bed. Months of sleeping on rocks or sand make the old, stiff mattress feel like the softest down ever manufactured.

They’d left the desert, and had begun passing through small settlements. Anti-Malazan sentiment is pervasive, but Root’s command of the various Seven Cities dialects had smoothed over all encounters thus far. Not to mention her hitherto unseen (by Shaw, at least) ability to completely transform herself. Nothing changes physically, except maybe the set of her jaw, and the way she holds herself, but in seconds she becomes a shaking, terrified refugee of war, and sympathy from the people they pass flows ceaselessly. And when they stopped for the night, they found inns. Marvelous establishments, and Shaw vows to never take even the seediest ones for granted.

Now she lays squashed against Root on their room’s single bed, clearly not meant to house more than one person, and sighs contentedly. Given both of their injuries, their lovemaking (Root insists on using this word, despite Shaw’s protests) has necessarily been more gentle. Still rather pleasant, though, surprisingly. Unusually comfortable.

‘Unusually comfortable’ sums up most of her time with Root lately. She’s not sure she trusts the desert woman, is not even really sure if she likes her, but her presence is a constant that Shaw has begun to feel accustomed to. She’d been comfortable with her company in the Malazan army, she supposes, but it’s different, somehow, from what she has now with Root.

Not that she intends to give voice to any of these thoughts.

“Yes. I’ve missed you. Of course, I understand. But I’m glad you’re here now. Are you ready?”

A poke in Shaw’s side tells her that this last comment was meant for her. “What?” 

“I asked if you were ready to go to sleep.” Root says, blowing out the candles resting on the windowsill that provide the only light in the room. “But it looks like you already were.”

“Sorry,” Shaw grunts, maneuvering herself to a slightly more comfortable position. “I tend to stop listening when you do your soliloquy thing.”

“You don’t have to be jealous about my relationship with Her,” Root says, wrapping her arms around Shaw. “It doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

“You think I want a god whispering in my ear?” Shaw snorts. “No thanks.”

Root turns on her side, resting her chin on Shaw’s shoulder. “What about me whispering in your ear?”

Shaw pushes Root’s head away with one hand. “I’ve had worse. Anyway,” she says, trying to stretch, the motion encumbered by the end of the bed and Root’s form beside her. “I’m starting to think you don’t really need me for this.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Every town we’ve come across so far is under Seven Cities’ control. What makes you think it’ll be any different when we get to the harbor?”

“Don’t worry, Sameen, I’ll protect you.”

Shaw scoffs. “I think we’ve established that I’m the one who does the protecting. I’m not worried about myself, I just don’t see the need for me to come along.”

“Maybe I just like your company.”

“Yeah, you’ve made that pretty clear.”

“I haven’t heard you complaining.” Root says, shifting one of her legs in between both of Shaw’s.

“Yeah well I slept on dirt and rock and didn’t complain because it was all I had. Doesn’t mean I’m taken with it. My point is, I’m not doing any good if we’re not dealing with Malazans.”

“We will be.”

Shaw decides not to challenge this particular prophecy. They usually end up being right, anyway.

***

A flock of gulls wing overhead. Cool, salty wind blows in from the sea. Shaw looks out at the harbor, and the vast expanse of sparkling water beyond. Just as Root had said, the city was under Malazan jurisdiction, and a few conversations later Shaw had secured Root a place on a ship bound for Genabackis.

Now she finds herself unattached. She could stay, and rejoin what’s left of the Malazan army here in Seven Cities. She’s still a captain, albeit one whose entire company was decimated. Or she could sail home. Nobody would really expect her to reenlist, and she could live comfortably there, too. Work as a doctor, maybe.

Instead, she walks up the plank to the ship Root had boarded earlier.

One of the hands sees her, and calls out, “Hey, we haven’t got room for any more! Especially since the captain already gave up his cabin to the last one.”

Figures that Root would take only moments to have the entire ship spun around her finger. “I’m with her.” Shaw tells the man. 

She walks to the prow of the ship, where she finds Root leaning on the railing, looking out at the ocean. She glances over as Shaw approaches, looking very pleased, but not especially surprised.

“I thought you couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”

“Yeah, well, you’ll just get yourself killed on your own.” Shaw leans on the railing beside her. “Anyway, I heard you talked your way into a pretty nice cabin,” Offhandedly she adds, “How’s the bed?”

Root smiles.

Genabackis

The city sprawls across the landscape inelegantly, like Shaw does in her sleep. Root navigates roads that twist and careen oddly around buildings, evidence of a thoroughfare created as a desperate reaction to a burgeoning population. As she walks, she finds the remains of city walls, legacies of boundaries in times past, layered around and around the city like the concentric rings of a felled tree. Each one representing years of time traversed.

The noise of battle spins around her as well, of course, but she hardly notices it. The tendrils of her mind sweep out and easily brush away any thoughts the city’s defenders might have of attacking her. None of them seem particularly committed to their cause, anyway; most surrender as the Malazan army pours in. Their loyalty to their mage-ruler doesn’t seem to extend much beyond an initial compulsion.

That wasn’t the point, after all. The point was to get Root’s attention.

As she works her way further into the city, the buildings become older and more elaborate. Residences and inns and stores are joined by more cathedrals and temples. The haphazard skew of the road begins to straighten, resembling more the rectangular layout of a planned metropolis. The presence of other minds brushing up against Root’s begin to fade away as she moves nearer to the city’s center.

Except one, a fierce pulse that grows stronger as she moves toward it.

_Where’s your little friend?_ A voice, smooth and superior, rings in her head. _The short, fierce one. Shouldn’t she be here to save your skin like last time?_

Root doesn’t reply.

Once, Root had been without purpose. A child growing up in the slums, largely unnoticed by the mass of humanity that had swarmed around her. Aware of her lack of direction, and desperate to find it, she’d fled to Seven Cities. It was there, lying collapsed, parched, and half dead on the swirling sands of the Holy Desert Raraku that a god had found her, and had given her a purpose. And after that, she’d found in Shaw something even better than purpose.

She doesn’t have to go through with it, she knows. Her god asks, but never demands, and it’s exactly this that makes Root unable to deny her. Without her, Root wouldn’t be anything at all.

She reaches the center, the oldest part of the city.

***

Corporal Root’s blind spot is her right side, since she can’t hear incoming attacks. When in battle, Sergeant Shaw always stands on Root’s right. The corporal uses her magic to incite panic and fright among the nearby enemies, and Shaw carves through them. Root’s a talented fighter with her two long knives as well, but she tends to be rather reckless, and it’s only Shaw’s presence at her side that has prevented the woman from getting herself killed a dozen times over.

This is difficult to do, however, when the mage is not present. Shaw growls as she pushes through soldiers fighting around her, barely paying them any attention, looking for her stupid, insubordinate corporal.

The battle had begun normally enough; heavily armored soldiers assailing the gates, then the rush inward of the quicker, lither squads, Shaw’s among them. The soldiers defending the city seemed disinclined to offer much resistance; whatever geas had been imposed on them apparently did not hold up to actual threats. Most surrendered or ran, making the battle one of the most bloodless Shaw has been a part of.

But still, Root should have stuck to her side. There’s no telling what’s going on elsewhere in the city. Shaw runs down narrow alleys and clambers over walls, seeking Root while avoiding contact with most of the soldiers flooding the city.

At the heart of the city, she finds her. Standing in an elaborate square, decorated with marble pillars and brightly colored rows of flowers, Root stands about ten paces from a woman that Shaw recognizes.

The one from the desert. The shapeshifter. Apparently the woman is a mage as well; she and Root stand opposite each either, eyes clamped shut, neither moving except to breathe. A soldier runs through the square, passing within fifteen paces of the invisible battle, and collapses on the ground. Shaw watches in a sort of horrified fascination as the man, shrieking, spasming on the ground, soaks the cobbled stones beneath as blood runs from his ears, and then finally quiets, and stops moving.

Clearly a battle better observed than participated in.

Shaw sees Root’s face contort in pain. And after a moment, she sees a thin line of red tracing down her corporal’s ear. No similar signs of exertion are present in the other woman’s demeanor.

Root is losing. How long before she succumbs to the same fate as the prone man on the ground, mentally shattered, but still in agony until the body finally expires?

Root’s knees buckle. Teeth gritted, she struggles to stay upright, even on her knees.

Suddenly it occurs to Shaw: this is what she’s been building to. Perhaps since even before they met, but at least since this last march across Genabackis. This is why her cloying tendencies have become even more overt, and why she’s been prone to fits of sullenness.

She knows she’s going to die. Perhaps this was what her so-called god intended for her all along; a noble, pointless sacrifice.

Shaw stalks forward, towards the woman opposite Root. The corporal’s magical manipulations had never worked on Shaw. Maybe this mental crossfire will be similarly ineffective. Maybe not. Doesn’t matter. Even with blood pouring from her ears, brain under magical siege, barely able to command her body, she’s still going to tear that woman’s throat out.

Shaw reaches her, not even feeling a twinge. The woman suddenly opens her eyes, appearing shocked, and a thick scent fills the air as she begins to veer, but a slash of Shaw’s sword severs head from neck before the transformation completes. Wiping her blade off on the woman’s collapsed torso, Shaw turns back to Root, who’s also collapsed to the ground. Shaw darts over, and turns her over gently, checking for vital signs. Pulse is good. Breathing erratic but there. Her eyes are closed.

Half-slurring, eyes still unopen, Root mumbles, “I told you.”

“What?”

“I told you,” she repeats, her eyes flickering open and struggling to focus. “I needed you.”

***

In the aftermath of the battle, no one notices three figures slipping away onto the plains. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to everyone who reads and comments!


End file.
